20.08.2009

Berlin Day 5 - Evening session - LIVE

Women's 100m hurdles - Semi-finals and Final - LIVE

Olympic silver-medallist Sally McLellan is hoping to go one better than her sensational performance in Beijing in tonight's 100m hurdles final. First she will have to negotiate the semi-finals where she lines up against her Olympic conqueror Dawn Harper (USA) and Lacena Golding-Clark from Jamaica.

The first two in each of the three semi-finals will automatically progress to the final along with the next two fastest qualifiers.

Canadian Priscilla Lopes-Schliep should win the first semi-final if she can demonstrate the same form she showed in the heat. The Olympic bronze medallist cannot discount Ginny Powell (USA) and Delloreen Ennis-London (Jamican) though.

Lopes-Schliep looked better in her heat but nevertheless runs 12.60 to win the heat from Ennis-London. Powell (USA) is third in 12.73 and will have to wait until the completion of the semi's to find out if she progresses.

A former world champion and reigning Commonwealth champion meet in the second semi-final. Canadian Perdita Felicien won the world title in 2003 by only four hundredths of a second from Brigitte Foster-Hylton (Jamaica), who went on to win in Melbourne in 2006. They will fight for the first two automatic spots with Olympic fourth-placer Damu Cherry (USA).

Cherry was out fast but Felicien and Foster-Hylton were past by halfway. Foster-Hylton looked good winning in 12.54, the Canadian recording 12.58 for second.

Currently the fastest non-automatic qualifying times are Powell (12.73) and Cherry (12.76).

McLellan is up next. She walks towards the first hurdle then looks back to check her blocks are straight. This is a big moment for the 22-year-old. Harper and Golding-Clark are the threat. The announcer introduces the Olympic silver medallist with a cheer from the crowd.

McLellan was not out to her best start but rallies and gets through to her first world championships final by finishing second to Harper, who runs a big personal best of 12.48. McLellan's time is 12.66. She's the first Australian to make the final of the 100m hurdles at the world championships. The next best performance is her own ranking of 10th two years ago in Osaka.

Despite the slow getaway McLellan has only ever run a faster time on 10 occasions. She is in great shape and showed maturity that belies her 22 years to get up into second.

Women's 100m hurdles - Final - LIVE

Here she goes. McLellan takes her place in lane seven with Lopes-Schliep on her inside.

Only six hundredths of a second separate the personal bests of the top seven in the final.

The major surprise after the semi-finals is the elimination of Damu Cherry, the Olympic fourth placer. This is expected to be one of the closest contested finals of the championships.

McLellan looks determined as the announcer goes through the field. Wow, there's plenty of superlatives there... Olympic champion, Commonwealth champion, former world champion and world indoor champion.

No smiles for McLellan as she is introduced, she has her race face on.

McLellan gets out with the field. Not her best start and again, like the heats, she rallies but it's not enough this time.

She fades over the last two hurdles and Foster-Hylton wins in a season's best 12.51.

Lopes-Schliep again gets a minor medal but this time moves up one place from last year (12.54). Ennis-London is third in 12.55.

12.70 is the time for the young Australian in fifth. O'Rourke was the huge surprise running a big personal best 12.67 for fourth and a new Irish record.

Olympic champion Harper was never a factor after clipping a hurdle early on.

Foster-Hylton was supposed to win this title back in 2003 when entering the final as a clear favourite after world No. 1 Gail Devers was shockingly eliminated in the semi-finals. However, Perdita Felicien surprised in the final to win in 12.53, becoming the first Canadian female medallist at the world championships.

Foster-Hylton (Hylton at the time) came second in 12.57. Two years later she placed third after being the fastest in the semi-finals. Despite winning a Commonwealth title in 2006, the veteran Jamaican look destined never to win on the world stage, particularly considering later this year she turns 35.

Tonight she was able to handle the pressure and becomes Jamaica's third gold medallist of these championships.

McLellan missed four days training when the Australian team was based in Cologne at the team preparation camp due to back spasms and perhaps that was enough for her to lose a little form over the last few weeks.

“I don’t really have a reaction yet, I’m still in shock,” she said.

“I didn’t have the best weeks leading up to these championships, I’m not trying to make excuses or anything but I pretty much cried myself here because I had a really bad back injury.

"I couldn’t even get up without assistance, so it wasn’t the best week before the worlds. A lot of stress went into it but I think that was my best race out of all of them even though it wasn’t the best time. I hit a couple of hurdles and I think as I get on in the European season coming up I’ll be able to get better and better in each race.”

To view Sally McLellan's post-race interview, click here.

Men's 400m - Semi-finals - LIVE

Three Australian men appear in the semi-finals of the men's 400m. Sean Wroe, Joel Milburn and John Steffensen all have a real chance of making the final but it may take a sub-45 second performance to get there, which is not beyond the trio.

Steffensen owns a personal best of 44.73, set when winning the Commonwealth title in 2006, whilst Milburn dipped under 45 for the first time in Luzern with 44.99 just before the Beijing Olympics. At the Games he further improved that to 44.80 in his heat to become the fifth fastest Australian ever. Wroe has been close on a few occasions and hopes to break through tonight.

Milburn is up in the first heat in just under 10 minutes. He's setting up his blocks now and getting ready for a practice start. If he looks up he'll see 2004 Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner skipping back from his run-through.

The American runs from lane five and is most likely to take one of the automatic qualifying positions. The threats to Milburn appear to be Lesley Djhone (France) with a season's best of 44.99, in-form Irishman David Gillick and the Brit Michael Bingham in lane eight.

Just about set to go. He enters the straight in sixth place and fights through to the line but it won't be enough to get through as the defending champion Wariner wins easily in 44.69.

Bingham continues his meteoric rise to run a personal best 44.74 in second. Milburn's time for sixth was 46.06. Bingham's best only one year ago was 45.71, set when placing second at the Gateshead British Grand Prix.

To view Joel Milburn's post-race interview, click here.

So Milburn misses out, but let's see what national champion Wroe can do in the next heat. He goes in lane six and three lanes inside him appears LaShawn Merritt, the reigning Olympic champion.

Collazo and Quow are the others in the heat with season's bests better than the Australian.

He's across the line in fourth and needs to be better than 44.88 to make it through. His time comes through as 45.32, which is one hundredth slower than he ran in his heat. Although his times in Berlin are the best he has recorded this European campaign, Wroe ran 45.07 to win the national title in Brisbane in March and hasn't quite been able to reproduce that form of late.

He will be disappointed not to make the final but he has been mixing it with the best in the world, so will take some confidence into the 2010 Commonwealth Games season.

To view Sean Wroe's post-race interview, click here.

Now it's Steffensen's turn. Let's hope he can repeat the performance from Helsinki where he made the final and ultimately finished eighth.

Chris Brown (Bahamas) is likely to breeze through to his third final at this level.

Steffensen looked good and was close to the lead into the straight but faded over the last 80m. 45.50 is his time for fifth place. That's not bad considering the back-related hamstring issues he has been dealing with. At the Rome Golden Gala meet he looked to be back to his best when running 45.28, but since then lost form as a result of his ailing leg.

The qualifiers on time will come from the first heat, Djhone (44.80) and Gillick (44.88).

After his performance Steffensen reflected.

“It’s championship running isn’t it. I put myself out there, so I declared I was fit.

“It was a testament to the guys that beat me, they’ve been running well all season and this is championship running, if you don’t come in championship form you’re not going to be in the final.

“The relay is always exciting and obviously on paper we’ve got a pretty great team but we all need a bit of a rest and over the next couple of days we’ll sit down with the team management and try to put together the best possible team so we can get the best possible result come Saturday."

To view John Steffensen's post-race interview, click here.

Joel Milburn acknowledged that although he is training well, he ran out of time to get race fit.

“I’ll have to sit down and really assess things with my coach in the next month or so but I’ve trained really hard this year so the work ethic hasn’t changed. It’s just one of those things where I got sick in the domestic season and I haven’t been able to build from that," he said.

“I’m looking forward to the relay, I’ve got the fitness there and hopefully the pressure of the 4x400m will bring it out of me.”

Sean Wroe was satisfied with his performance but would have liked to progress further.

“You set such high goals for yourself, you’ve been in a position where you’ve made the semi-final before, obviously I made the semi-final last year and you just want to go that one step further," Wroe said.

“I really gave it a shake out there tonight. I attacked the first 200m but just ran out of legs in the last 100m. I felt like I was coming home strong and the time was a lot quicker than what it was which is a good thing, but I can’t complain, two consecutive times at 45.3 so I’m very fit.”

Men's 1500m - Final

The final of the men's 1500m was supposed to be a duel between top Kenyans Asbel Kiprop, the Olympic silver medallist, and the fastest man in 2009 Augustine Choge.

Defending champion Bernard Lagat, the Kenyan-born American was also expected to be in the mix thanks to a 3000m personal best in July and win over the mile at the London Grand Prix in the same month.

In the end, a Kenyan-born did win but it was neither of the expected three. Kiprop found himself boxed in early and by the end of the first two laps was languishing near the tail of the field. Up front Choge started pushing the pace with Lagat never far away in second on the rail.

At the bell, Kiprop tried to move through the field but encountered too much traffic on the way.

Yusuf Saad Kamel from Bahrain, whose Kenyan name Gregory Konchellah will be familiar to athletics aficionados, burst from the pack with 100m to go to win in 3:35.93 from Deresse Mekonnen. His father Billy won the 800 at the 1987 and 1991 world championships.

He was granted a change of allegiance to Bahrain by the IAAF in November 2003.